The Supreme Court's suo motu notice of the private medical colleges' affairs confirms what has been common knowledge: that the sector remains largely unregulated. While hearing the case of inflated fees, a two-member bench of the court, headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, discovered a number of anomalies. While the regulatory authority, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), had informed the Chief Justice a day earlier that it had fixed Rs 642,000 per year fee for MBBS, an official of a private medical school disclosed that his institution charged a whopping Rs 900,000 per year. In the same case, the court ordered the suspension of the Faisalabad Medical University's vice chancellor and summoned the son of Punjab Governor Rafiq Rajwana on being informed by a lawyer that she was approached by the two men with the offer of admission for any acquaintance if she did not pursue the case. The two were, however, upon tendering of apology were let off. The regulator, Pakistan Medical & Dental Council, seems to prefer to ignore this violation and other unsavoury practices due to pressure from influential quarters.

It also transpired not only that there exist unregistered medical colleges but that they have been ignoring a stay order regarding further admissions. Apparently, they had reason to be confident they would not be found out. These colleges, of course, remain unregistered because they lack essential facilities. Regrettably, however, the situation in many of the private medical schools, duly accredited by the PMDC, is not any better. In several instances, they have been functioning without being attached to a proper hospital that is fully equipped and functional to qualify as a teaching hospital. Perturbed over this aspect of regulatory failures, the Chief Justice asked a representative of one of such colleges "do you take students to the hospital on buses?" going on to observe that in the past the colleges and teaching hospitals used to be located at one place so that students could study and learn at the same place. As a matter of fact on paper, that still is a prerequisite. The PMDC criteria for accreditation, among other things, require all medical colleges to have an assigned teaching hospital.

Unfortunately, like in so many other areas, things have been allowed to become progressively worse. This is simply unacceptable. For medical colleges prepare their students to deal with real life and death issues. A major part of the learning in these institutions comes not from book reading or from lectures, but from interaction with patients and study of their case histories. It makes no sense for them to function without the prescribed infrastructure and hospitals. That is unfair to the half-baked doctors some of the private medical institutions produce and even more unfair to the people treated by them. The Supreme Court's intervention cannot be welcomed enough. It is heartening to know that those responsible for this state of affairs are finally being held to account.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017